


She is Home

by ohmytheon



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mormont feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-26 05:43:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2640239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmytheon/pseuds/ohmytheon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jorah Mormont knows that he will follow Daenerys Targaryen to the ends of the earth, even if it means his death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She is Home

When he had told her that he would follow her to the ends of the world, he hadn’t meant it literally.

But then he _had_ meant it, and so he _did_ follow her to what felt like the ends of this side of the world, roaming from desert to desert, passing through hell for what felt like eternity. The Red Waste had nearly killed them, but now their caravan was strong and moved from city to city, turning each one on its end with every passing day.

It was foolish though. He knew it. This place wasn’t her home; this place wasn’t meant for her. He didn’t even know who these places belonged to; they were just some foreign land. Part of him longed to ride a horse through the Dothraki Sea. At least there he knew what to expect. The Dothraki weren’t an people that did unexpected things. There weren’t political issues or games of thrones. You either won or you died and that was it. He missed the simple life that his exile had brought him, in some strange way. He’d hated it and had done everything he could to go home, even betray her for some time, but he could never go home again.

This wasn’t home. Bear Island wasn’t home. He didn’t know what home was to him anymore, just a word in a language he’d once known.

(Home was her. Home was her smile. Home was her shiny, bright hair, growing back from the fire that had born her dragons what felt like so long ago. Home was the fire that consumed her and everyone around her. Home would always be her from now on.)

“What do you think of this city, truly?” she had asked him the other day.

If truth be told, he hated this place. He hated the look of it, the smell of it, the people that lived in it. Everything about this place screamed unimaginable horrors to him. When he rounded a corner, he only found more things to hate. Oh, the people loved her, called her “Mother,” but behind her back, they were conspiring against her. _This isn’t your home,_ he wanted to tell her, but every time he tried, she would give him that look and tell him the same thing. These were her people. She couldn’t just abandon them. She needed to learn how to rule. But these weren’t the people that she was supposed to rule.

Instead he had told her, “This is your city, Khaleesi. I will defend it and you with everything I have.”

He knew from the moment he stepped into Mereen that he would die here. Some day or another, he would take his last breath here. He didn’t know how and he certainly didn’t know when, but he could feel his imminent death seep into his bones and burrow into him. It had taken the breath out of him; and he’d struggled to come through that blow to the chest so quickly. There were so many things that needed to be done. And he couldn’t waste his time worrying about himself when he had to protect her. She was so loving, so wanting to be good, that she made herself an easy target.

He would die for her. He knew that in spirit and in the future. There was no doubt in his mind that he would one day give his life for her. It was meant to be a peaceful thought, but instead it just made him restless. Who would protect her when he was gone? He would need to make sure that there were people she could trust, but he could not trust anyone with her trust. There was only him. These people weren’t her people. They didn’t know her. They couldn’t possibly understand her gentleness or her fierce strength; they could never understand her fire and how she had stepped out of the flames that first time with the baby dragons only covering her. They could never know the naked rawness of her soul like he’d been privy to in that moment.

 _“You are blind when it comes to love,”_ Dacey had told him in another life.

They had been young, back when he’d first asked for Lynesse Hightower’s hand in marriage after the tourney, she so much younger yet somehow wiser than him already. He could still remember the way her feet swirled around in the water as they sat by a pond, away from everyone else. Out of all his cousins, he had been closest to her, as she’d been the oldest. She had come with him to that tourney, grumbling about wanting to compete but cheering him on the loudest when he conquered the others time and time again. He had no doubt that she would’ve unseated him had she been allowed to compete.

 _“She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,”_ Jorah had told her stubbornly. He had been a man grown, but Dacey always managed to make him feel like a child. She was both his closest and by far most annoying cousin. Still, she had been right and he had acted like a child.

Dacey had smiled and leaned back, eyes on the half moon. _“Since when has beauty ever had anything to do with love, cousin?”_ she had told him, not looking at him. _“She is beautiful, aye, but that is not all that matters.”_ Of course she would say things like that. Jorah had thought her pretty, but she was not stunning, not like Lynesse, not like these other highborn girls that they were surrounded by. She was rough and worn around the edges, but she was warm and funny and brave.

She had not been married. He wondered if she ever would be, if she was now. It had been so long since he had seen her that it was difficult for him to recall her smile now. It was never full, only a half smile, as if the other half of her smile was a secret that she saved for only one person in the world. It had not been him. He hoped she found the one person she could share the other side of her smile with.

He would never know though. He was worlds away from her, in a different land, with a different woman. Daenerys Targaryen was the true queen of Westeros. He knew that with everything in him and he would die to ensure her place on the throne. And in fact, he knew now that Dacey had been right. Lynesse had not been the most beautiful woman in the world. That title too belonged to the Mother of Dragons. But beauty was not all she had. She was hopeful and kind and amazing and greater than any person he had ever known. She would bring Westeros together. She would bring him home.


End file.
